Potty Traning

I wasn’t going to even attempt potty training until after baby girl had come along. However, last week, my mom suggested that maybe I should try it since Benjamin and I are home bound everyday, all day, and it would be a lot easier now, when I only have one kid to worry about.
A little hesitant, but seeing that if I were to try, the window of opportunity to do it was quickly shrinking. I’ll be honest. I love working with kids, studying child development and feel fairly comfortable when it comes to working and teaching kids. After all, its what I love to do, hence why I became a teacher. I enjoy teaching Benjamin school things, but potty training? I was scared out of my mind. In all my experience with children, I have never potty trained. I wasn’t quite ready to try this new adventure.
The Game Plan:
Thursday night, we made a family trip to Target. We bought “incentives,” cool action figure undies, and a training potty. All crucial parts of my game plan. Benji does well with charts, incentives and visuals, so Rob and I also made a 5 step picture chart of the steps to potty training.
When I brought the potty home, I wasn’t planning on attempting training till Monday. But, I pulled out the potty, and as soon as Benji saw the potty, he said to me and Rob: “ Diaper off!” And he sat on the potty and went pee!
So even though I wasn’t quite ready, Benji was, and we started training Friday morning. I was terrified, I wasn’t too sure what to expect, except that I didn’t know what I was doing and poor Benjamin had his mommy following him around like a hawk. He had a couple of accidents, and I was quickly losing my confidence and wondering if he was really ready. So, whenever I have questions, I always go to the web and I found this awesome, awesome, article on potty training, which boosted my confidence to do this. I highly recommend reading this! http://www.americanbusinessmedia.com/images/abm/pdfs/events/neal_library/Contemporary%20Pediatrics--Class%20A%20Cat%205--1.pdf

The first few days, Benji went commando style--- worked like a charm. It makes kids more aware of what’s going on. I also have him go use the bathroom right when he wakes up, right before and after naps. All the other times, he has usually told me when he has had to go, or he starts acting strange and I ask him if he needs to go.

So far things have gone well, we are on day 5, and Benjamin has been super successful. Yesterday Benji wore undies all day, had no accidents and woke up dry both times. (He even woke up in the nighttime to tell us he needed to go potty!). Today, B had a couple of accidents, but over all, he is self motivated and runs to the potty and does it himself. (Granted I have been super tired lately, and haven’t felt well today and took it easy, so that could be part of some of the accidents). He only does number 2 by himself. I think he is still a little freaked out about doing number 2. Hopefully that will pass soon.
I anticipate regression when baby sister comes… but I am hoping to get him in the habit before then. We will have had 28 days to get this into his system… before 37 weeks, when baby girl could come anytime after that ☺